And They All Had a Gay Time
Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor made their way down the Crystal Palace corridor, their hoof-steps echoing on the mirror-like floor. They stopped now and then to admire the wall hangings or exchange a few words. Shining looked over at Twilight, who was smiling just about the most idiotic smile a pony could have. About to make known such a fact, he was stopped by her effervescent squeal.
"I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait!" she rhapsodized. "The largest collection of rare books in Equestria! Red Velvet's 'Fun Things to do with a Mare and a Hairbrush', Twilight Savage's '10 Freaky Fillies on a Yacht' , Aurora Skyline's 'A Day in the Life of Ivory Diamondshine'. These books were banned in all of Equestria except the Crystal Empire due to its separate laws on censorship. Did you know, 10 Freaky Fillies on a Yacht was once the most popular book in Equestria, but was banned due to...."
Shining Armor smiled. It wasn't every month he got to spend a weekend with his egg-headed little sister, and he had decided to treat her with a visit to the Crystal Palace's collection of forbidden books. Trotting past the rows of guards, who looked as if they were about to collapse and fall asleep due to sheer boredom, he made his way to a large door at the end of the hall. A ring of keys floated to the lock in a magical aura the color of GMO grape purple.
They entered the library. Twilight let out a gasp for the library was filled to the brim with forbidden books. There were books deemed to be too dangerous, ones deemed to be immoral, and ones that had "challenged the ideology of the two sisters". There were so many naughty books; where was a mare to start?
"What books have you been reading lately?" Twilight ventured.
Shining Armor blushed. "Not important." 'Nick-nack-paddy-wack Give a Mare a Bone' did not seem at all like a book that Twilight would be interested in. Not that there was anything wrong with mares being into books like that of course; Shining was all for Coltcuddler and Fillyfooler rights.
Twilight shrugged and continued to make her way through the labyrinth. An hour of reading and hearty conversation with the librarian later, the two found themselves seated at a small table. They were immersed in the most delectable books a literary gourmet could pick out. Twilight Sparkle was finishing a chapter on baking a devil's food cake that controlled ponies' minds when she spotted a red volume that stuck out from the rest due to its bright color. It was an awfully garish shade of red, a color that for whatever reason, spoke of a police state, mass starvation, and no private property. Holding the book aloft in her magical aura, Twilight scanned the title: 'The Communist Manifesto'.
Cadence facehoofed for the fifth time that hour. As adorable as Shiny and Twilight could be when they got riled up over something, they, like all siblings, had the ability to go back and forth for hours. She would have much rather gone to the Crystal Market than mediate four hours of vigorous debate on Communism and Capitalism. "The dictatorship of the proletariat doesn't work!" and "Real Communism has never been tried, and I am the mare to try it!" were now phrases ringing through her head.
"I'm telling you Twilly," Shining argued "It works very well in theory, but it doesn't work quite as well in practice. It's been tried in many places, but it has failed each time."
"Communism is completely logical," Twilight countered, oblivious to her brother's groan of exasperation. "If you collectivize all the farms, you no longer have to worry about unequal distribution of land. You encourage ponies to work together, and that's what the magic of friendship is all about: working with other ponies; treating them with generosity!"
Shining Armor banged his head on the desk. One hour of political back and forth had left its mark on the stallion.
"It doesn't work Twilly; it just doesn't work."
"Shining," Princess Cadence reassured her husband.
Twilight continued, undefeated. “You don’t know it doesn’t work. Never before has it been put into practice in Equestria. How do you know if something doesn't work if you've never tried it out?”
“Ponies have tried it out, Twilly," Shining groaned. "Stalliongrad, Saddle Lanka, North Jeju Island - it’s been put into practice in each of those places, but it's failed each time. Communism doesn't work."
The purple maned Marexist sat in silence. The argument had dragged on for far too long, and she and Shining had had so many other things planned for the day. She decided to let the subject go; the weather was beautiful outside and the roses in the Crystal Garden were in full bloom.
"Shining, Twilight," implored Cadence, who sounded as if she would much rather be watching paint dry than mediating a debate.
Shining smirked, an idea in mind. "Why don't we bet on it then. You go ahead and try to turn Ponyville into a Communist paradise, while I keep running the Crystal Empire the way it should be run."
"Fine, loser has to buy the winner lunch."
“Fine."
"And do the winner's taxes."
Shining hesitated. "Alright."
"Ponies, I have great news," announced Twilight to the crowd gathered in Ponyville square. "After hours of debate and careful research, I have decided to turn this town into a Communist dictatorship, with me, the Princess of Friendship, as its supreme leader. We will teach everypony values of genorosity, kindness, honesty, loyalty, laughter, magic, and above all, " Twilight paused, savoring the crowd's expectant silence. "Equality!"
The crowd began whispering among itself, confusion evident on everypony's faces.
"Twilight, you are starting to sound a lot like Starlight before she was reformed," Rainbow Dash pointed out.
"That is a perfectly logical comparison to make," Twilight replied. Rainbow Dash jolted upright in surprise.
"However," Twilight continued. "We will allow ponies to keep their cutie marks and what makes them unique. Only this time, we will be forcing them into unsatisfactory agricultural and industrial jobs and taking away all their personal freedoms!" She let out a whoop and stared at the crowd, expecting them to do the same.
"Uh, Twilight, come again" Applejack's mouth was wide open in a farcical expression of confusion.
"Darling, I'm afraid I don't understand what you're suggesting," Rarity added.
"We are going to introduce Communism to Ponyville!" Twilight rambled. "Spike, you'll be head of my secret police. Arrest anyone who insults the new government, insults the supreme leader, or otherwise does anything that annoys me in the slightest. Imprison them in Sugarcube Corner- ahem Sugarcube Correctional Camp."
Spike nodded.
"Twilight, are you sure about this?" ventured Fluttershy.
"Sure Fluttershy," Twilight asserted. "Come on ponies, princess's orders! And you, Pinkie Pie, you will be Chairpony of the Party. Your job is to make sure that everypony joins the party."
"Got it Twilight!" Pinkie Pie was only too eager to throw a party that involved everypony.
"Applejack," Twilight continued. "You will be head of collectivization. You will make sure that the farmers work together on the same land, growing the same crops, using the same tools. No more private land ownership; from now on, you share the land!"
Applejack was torn. Her land was her land, and it belonged to the Apple Family and nopony else. Yet here was one of her best friends, telling her to give it up for the greater good.
Twilight noticed Applejack's hesitant expression."Believe me, Applejack, this is for the greater good."
"Alright, Twilight." Applejack conceded.
"Fluttershy, you will be Minister of Land Resources." Twilight cheered. "You will help us undergo large scale and unsustainable projects that will ultimately wreck the environment." She smiled at the amusing shocked expression on Fluttershy's face. "First off all, you will drain Mare-al Lake and turn it into a desert. "
"Gosh, Twilight, I'm really not sure if the critters will like that,"
"Nonsense, Fluttershy, its's to provide irrigation to our collective farms."
"I'm not really sure what any of those words mean,"
"Don't worry about it. I've got this,"
Ignoring the yellow pegasus pony's protests, Twilight turned to Rarity. "You, Rarity, you will be Head of Industry."
"Come again?"
"You will go about turning Ponyville into an industrial powerhouse like Trottingham in five days."
"Twilight, darling, I don't know the first thing about - about industry. And even if I did, I don't think I would be able to achieve such a goal in five days."
"You know Rarity, Stalliongrad industrialized in just five years under Trotsky"
Applejack raised her head in interest. "Correct me if I'm wrong Twilight but that was at the expense of millions of ponies. I would know; they came after the farmers first, the wealthy land owning farmers."
"But that won't happen again here in Ponyville," Twilight noted, without further explanation. "Here Rarity, I've got the plans." The purple alicorn levitated a rather thick stack of papers over to Rarity. "These are all based off the ideas of the Marexist-Lemonists,"
Twilight left Rarity to be blown out of the world by the plans.
"Rainbow Dash," she continued. "You will be Head of Foreign Affairs. Build an iron curtain around Ponyville and imprison anypony who tries to escape, with the help of the secret police."
Rainbow Dash looked like a fish who had been told to swim out of the water.
"Trust me, Rainbow," Twilight added. "It's for their own good,"
"Twilight," Fluttershy interjected. "I'm really not sure taking away ponies' freedom to go wherever they please is a very good idea,"
"Fluttershy, we're doing this for their own good." Twilight asserted. "We can't let them escape this paradise to the hooves of the evil capitalists!"
By now, Twilight was wearing a rather odd Stalliongrad yak fur hat on her head.
"Alright everypony, now get to work making our dream of a Communist utopia a reality!"
"Next up, the Ponyville press!" Pinkie declared, her mane bouncing up and down as she skipped down the lane.
"What are we doing there Pinkie?" Spike asked.
"Oh you silly dragon, we're going there to save ponies from malicious misinformation and lies from Yakyakistan nitwits."
They reached a tan office building. Throngs of ponies stood outside, whispering about whatever the Princess of Friendship could have meant when she declared that Ponyville was henceforth a Communist dictatorship. Weaving their away around the very likely future Sugarcube Gulag prisoners, Pinkie and Spike made their way into the Ponyville Press building.
"Welcome to the party everypony! The Communist Party!" hooted Pinkie to the busy crowd of journalists.
The ponies inside, who had been wrapped up in Monday office routines just a moment ago, let out a collective cheer and began clapping their hooves. They reveled in the announcement, knowing neither what Communism was or why Pinkie was throwing the, a party in the middle of a work day."
"First up, no more freedom of speech!" Pinkie blew on a noisemaker, letting out a cheer.
One tan colored mare with a cutie mark of a fox began clapping and cheering. The rest sat there, their faces blank.
"Desert Fox! What are you clapping for?" interjected a purple stallion.
"I-I just like clapping, is all,"
"What do you mean?" ejaculated the same purple stallion.
"Well you see, clapping is my hobby and favorite pastime..."
"Not you, the pink one,"
"I mean, you silly filly-" the 'pink one' answered.
"I'm a stallion,"
"I mean, you screwy stallion, that we will persecute from now on anypony who writes a single mean word about our Princess of Friendship or her brilliant new ideology. Anypony caught insulting the state or Communism will be sent to Sugarcube Corner Correctional Camp. There, we will discuss why Communism, of course, is the best ideology ever!"
Pinkie blew again on her noisemaker.
The stallion sat there stunned.
"What do you say, Purple Prose?" interjected one mare. "We can't just let that happen,"
"Don't worry guys," interrupted Pinkie Pie. "You'll like correctional camp. And besides, we'll get to roast marshmallows."
"Pinkie, who are all these ponies?" asked Mr. Cake.
"Mr. Cake, these are ponies who don't respect the party, the Communist party,"
"The what now?
"The Communist Party - it mean we believe in equality and friendship. These ponies have been sent here, by orders of Comrade Twilight Sparkle, for re-education and indoctrination. We'll teach these ne'er do wells to be productive and fun loving members of society."
"Pinkie, what did these ponies do?"
"They questioned Comrade Twilight and her nifty new ideology. Now, they're staying here until they can be re-educated."
"We can't possibly house all these ponies!"
"Of course we can, silly. We'll just need one hundred bags of marshmallows, seventy boxes of graham crackers," Pinkie drifted off as she tuned back to the crowd of mares and stallions that had reluctantly followed her to Sugarcube 'Gulag'. "Get your Pony Scout sashes out everypony," she cheered "Welcome to Correctional Camp!"
"What exactly is Communism, Tia?"
Celestia looked up from her papers and turned to her sister.
"It's just a silly ideology that ponies tried to put into action back in the day." she answered. "It works very well in theory, and certain elements of it do have their merit, but it doesn't work in actuality. Twilight, I'm afraid, has become rather infatuated with it."
"What are we going to do about it?" Luna asked. "She's set up a - a commune in Ponyville and she's not letting anypony in or out. In fact, she's built an iron curtain around the entire town. A stallion named Virgin Lands was just there trying to deliver wheat, but they wouldn't let him or his grain truck in. Something about not wanting him or his capitalist wares."
Celestia sighed. "We'll see what happens over the next little while. If things do get dire, we'll send the Royal Guard in to mediate things. I just hate using force against the little one."
"Shining, Shining!" There was a hurried knocking on his office door.
Drowning in applications to join the Crystal Guard and immersed in his erotic fiction, Shining Armor looked up to see a worried Princess Cadence come in.
"I've just received news from Celestia. The situation is dire in Ponyville - excuse me - Our Glorious Union of Ponyville and all its Surrounding Territories. Ponies are going hungry and there are uprisings in the streets. Factories are being built at the expense of ponies and their personal freedoms. Nopony is allowed to speak out about the situation and Mare-al Lake is now Mare-al Desert."
Shining sat for a moment, ruminating over Cadence's words.
"Does this have anything with that Communism idea you and Twilight were discussing last Sunday."
Shining nodded sheepishly, then frowned. "I told her that this would happen, but when she gets an idea stuck in her head, she never listens to other's opinions."
They couple sat in silence.
"Should we intervene?" Cadence queried.
"We promised her one week. Just one more day and nopony will have to worry about this foolishness anymore."
"I sure hope so."
Five hectic days of rapid factory building, failed land reform projects, and imprisonment of just about everypony in Ponyville later, Princess Luna was at wits end.
"They're tearing Ponyville apart. We have to intervene."
Celestia nodded solemnly. "I'll send in the Royal Guard."
"And Shining Armor?"
"And Shining Armor."
The first thing Shining Armor saw upon crossing the hastily constructed iron barrier was ponies wandering the streets, looking for food.
"Communism is good. We all love Communism" droned one stallion, sounding more like a zombie than a pony.
"Golly G," declared a light blue mare, a screw loose look in her eyes. "I sure do love Communism."
"I''m not hungry; I'm not hungry," muttered a colt, curled up in a ball and rocking back and forth.
As the royal guards made their way past the hungry ponies, to the center of town, they saw a gathering of ponies around the Castle of Friendship. The ponies wrapped ropes around a ten foot statue of Twilight Sparkle and were starting to tear it down.
"Stop, stop, everypony" called an eggheaded voice from the second floor window. "This situation has gotten out of control."
"There she is!" cried an exhausted mare, letting go of the rope in her mouth.
"I haven't eaten a full meal in days, Princess Twilight," whimpered an orange colt.
"It's Comrade Twilight," corrected Comrade Twilight. "And don't worry, we'll get you food as soon as all the workers are fed."
"The workers are never full," interjected a stallion with a cutie mark of a bolt. "You're working them to exhaustion!"
"Well of course, we have to make ten years industrial progress in five days," reasoned the purple mare, unaware of just how unreasonable her statement was.
"Let's get her!" booed a red mare.
The crowd inched forwards, pitchforks and torches in hooves. Just then, they were stopped by a wall of intimidating ponies in suits.
"My secret police will take care of you," chirped the Communist dictator. "Send them to the gulag!"
"How are we going to get to the princess?" asked Golden Shield, a royal guard, to Shining Armor.
"We'll have to use a teleportation spell," replied Shining. "I'll reason with my sister; you ponies try to control the crowd."
Golden Shield nodded to his captain and stepped off to fulfill his orders.
His horn glowing in a heterosexual pink aura, Shining cast the teleportation spell and found himself standing in Twilight's bedroom. "Twilly!" he called out, trotting over to her and placing a hoof on her shoulder. "This has to stop," he emphasized.
"I'm sorry," the purple tyrant replied. "But what we're doing here is for the greater good."
"Twilly, please listen to me," begged Shining Armor. "I don't care if you've won the bet or not; what I'm worried about is the safety and well being of the ponies."
"Shining, they're loving Correctional Camp! Once word got out that there was an unlimited supply of marshmallows, our crime rate increased by 30,000%!"
"Twilight, that's because they won't get any food otherwise."
"99.9% of this town is imprisoned in Sugarcube Gulag, and they are loving Communist re-education. Ooh, Shining, I even got Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo to make a film to teach ponies about it." She let out a gasp. "I could show it to you right now!"
He raised his horn and was about to cast a sleeping spell, when suddenly, in came Princess Celestia?
"My little ponies," she declared. "I'll handle this from now on. My dear Twilight, I'll be needing you in Canterlot."
"Ooh, ooh, are we doing to discuss how great Communism is?" Twilight suggested.
"Um, maybe we can do that. There's something I have to discuss with you first." Celestia replied.
The two disappeared in a flash of white light, leaving behind a bewildered Shining Armor who was just about to leave when the first of the crowd burst in.
"Look, there he is! The brother of the dictator!" they cried "Let's get him!"
"Wait, wait, I can explain-" He gulped as the angry crowd inched forwards, armed to the teeth with pitchforks and torches.
He was interrupted as Celestia came back, wrapped him in a magical aura, then cast a teleportation spell.
"And that, my little pony, is why Communism doesn't work," Celestia concluded.
"Oh, Princess, if only somepony had told me so sooner," Twilight replied.
Shining facehoofed for the fiftieth time that hour, a record even when it came to Twilly.
"It's so obvious now, ponies, as good as they are, are always a little bit selfish, even if it's just a teensy weensy bit selfish," Twilight continued.
Princess Celestia nodded, proud of the progress her little stud-ent was making.
"And trying to do too much in too little time never works,"
Celestia nodded.
"Such was the case in the Stalliongrad famines of '51, '52', '53, '54, '55, 58'..." Twilight droned on.
"Very good Twilight,"
"Yes,"
"So you've finally decided to call off the project?"
"Yes Princess,"
"And apologize to everypony,"
"Yes, we'll throw them a party, A communist- ahem - a I'm-Sorry-For-Imposing-Communism-on-You-Without-You-Really-Wanting-It party," the purple princess corrected, noticing the warning look on her mentor's face.
"I hope you've learnt your lesson on conducting experiments on other ponies,"
"Oh yeah, as if the Smarty Pants incident wasn't enough," Twilight grinned sheepishly.
"Come on, let's get you two home. You must be exhausted."
Shining nodded in tacit agreement and began to follow the princess out of the room. Twilight, meanwhile, took a moment to take a look at the books in the royal office. Just then, a green, red and white volume caught her eye; she slipped it into her saddlebags, then followed Celestia out of the room, musing at what the title could possibly mean.
'Neoponylitan Fascism'
Author's Note
Twilight's draining of Mare-al Lake is a reference to the Soviet's draining of the Aral Sea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
Virgin Lands is a reference to the Virgin Lands Campaign:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Lands_Campaign
Despite the ponies getting free s'mores in Sugarcube Gulag, actual Gulag prisoners received little food and were subject to starvation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag
Hope you learnt something new today!
